The Studbook Passport
The Irish Draught's paperwork centres on its passport from the Irish Draught studbook, administered by Horse Sport Ireland, with national societies such as the Irish Draught Horse Society of North America handling horses bred and registered abroad. The passport records the horse's ancestry across several generations — depth of breeding matters greatly in a numerically small breed — and confirms the horse is a purebred Irish Draught rather than an Irish Sport Horse, which is the part-draught cross the studbook also touches. Check the identification page against the horse, microchip included, and confirm the seller appears as the recorded owner before the sale goes any further.
Inspection and Classification Documents
What sets this breed's file apart is inspection. Irish Draughts are graded by official inspection rather than registered automatically on ancestry alone: panels assess conformation, movement and soundness, and horses are placed in classes, with Class 1 representing the standard the breed wants bred from. Stallions that pass the full process earn the breed's historic registered title. The inspection result sheet — scores and the panel's remarks — is therefore a core document for any breeding animal, and its absence for a horse sold as breeding quality is a legitimate question. Even for a gelding destined for hunting and hacking, the classification in its passport tells you how the breed's own judges rated the horse in front of you.
Transfer Paperwork
Ownership transfers run through the studbook keeper or national society: the passport, a completed transfer or change-of-ownership form signed by the recorded owner, and the society's fee, supported by a bill of sale naming the horse and both parties. Horses imported from Ireland should also bring their export documentation, which belongs permanently in the file. Because the breed's population is small and its bloodlines closely watched, societies can be particular about incomplete chains of ownership — a horse whose transfers were never recorded may take correspondence to regularise, and that is the seller's job to complete before, not after, your money moves.
Health and Breeding Records
The working file should include a current negative Coggins for travel and showing, a vaccination record, and a health certificate if the horse crosses state lines on its way to you. For mares, covering certificates and foaling records document her breeding history; for any draught, recent dental and farrier records matter, since these are heavy horses whose feet and teeth carry real loads. A full vet history, including any wind or soundness findings from inspection or purchase examination, completes the set and gives your own vet the background this long-lived breed deserves.
An Irish Draught's papers carry the judgement of the breed's inspectors as well as its ancestry, and KinsLe's Transferrable Profiles keep that passport, classification and vet history together under the horse's new owner, exactly as the studbook intends.